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A range of laws applying to or of specific relevance to Indigenous Australians. A number of laws have been passed since the European settlement of Australia, initially by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, then by the Governors or legislature of each of the Australian colonies and more recently by the Parliament of Australia and that of each of its States and Territories, these laws, arranged chronologically, include:
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt Government, related to Indigenous Australians. Voters were asked whether to give the Federal Government the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether in population counts for constitutional purposes to include all Indigenous Australians. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.
Aboriginal Protection Board, also known as Aborigines Protection Board, Aborigines Welfare Board, Board for the Protection of Aborigines and similar names, refers to a number of historical Australian state-run institutions with the function of regulating the lives of Aboriginal Australians. They were also responsible for administering the various half-caste acts where these existed and had a key role in the Stolen Generations. The boards had nearly ultimate control over Aboriginal people's lives.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, publishing and research institute and is considered to be Australia's premier resource for information about the cultures and societies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Institute is a leader in ethical research and the handling of culturally sensitive material and holds in its collections many unique and irreplaceable items of cultural, historical and spiritual significance. The collection at AIATSIS has been built through over 50 years of research and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and is now a source of language and culture revitalisation, native title research and family and community history. AIATSIS is located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836.
The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, long name A Bill to make Provision for the better Protection and Care of the Aboriginal and Half-caste Inhabitants of the Colony, and to make more effectual Provision for Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Opium, was an Act of the Parliament of Queensland. It was the first instrument of separate legal control over Aboriginal peoples, and was more restrictive than any contemporary legislation operating in other states. It also implemented the creation of Aboriginal reserves to control the dwelling places and movement of the people.
The voting rights of Indigenous Australians became an issue from the mid-19th century, when responsible government was being granted to Britain's Australian colonies, and suffrage qualifications were being debated. The resolution of universal rights progressed into the mid-20th century.
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia. The term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or the person's specific cultural group, is often preferred, though the terms First Nations of Australia, First Peoples of Australia and First Australians are also increasingly common.
Half-Caste Act was the common name given to Acts of Parliament passed in Victoria and Western Australia in 1886. They became the model for legislation to control Aboriginal people throughout Australia - Queensland's Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, NSW/ACT's Aboriginal Protection Act 1909, the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, South Australia's Aborigines Act 1911, and Tasmania's Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912.
Australian heritage laws exist at the national (Commonwealth) level, and at each of Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia state and territory levels. Generally there are separate laws governing Aboriginal cultural heritage and sacred sites, and historical heritage. State laws also allow heritage to be protected through local government regulations, such as planning schemes, as well.
Land councils, also known as Aboriginal land councils, or land and sea councils, are Australian community organisations, generally organised by region, that are commonly formed to represent the Indigenous Australians who occupied their particular region before the arrival of European settlers. They have historically advocated for recognition of traditional land rights, and also for the rights of Indigenous people in other areas such as equal wages and adequate housing. Land councils are self-supporting, and not funded by state or federal taxes.
Adoption in Australia deals with the adoption process in the various parts of Australia, whereby a person assumes or acquires the permanent, legal status of parenthood in relation to a child under the age of 18 in place of the child's birth or biological parents. Australia classifies adoptions as local adoptions, and intercountry adoptions. Known child adoptions are a form of local adoptions.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, is legislation passed by the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia to enable the Commonwealth to intervene and, where necessary, preserve and protect areas and objects of particular significance to Australia's Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples from being desecrated or injured.
Commonwealth, State, and Territory Parliaments of Australia have passed Aboriginal land rights legislation.
Indigenous land rights in Australia, also known as Aboriginal land rights in Australia, relate to the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, and the term may also include the struggle for those rights. Connection to the land and waters is vital in Australian Aboriginal culture and to that of Torres Strait Islander people, and there has been a long battle to gain legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters occupied by the many peoples prior to colonisation of Australia starting in 1788, and the annexation of the Torres Strait Islands by the colony of Queensland in the 1870s.
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th century to the 1960s to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population, for various reasons perceived by the government of the day. The Aboriginal reserve laws gave governments much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives.
The Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) (ALS), known also as Aboriginal Legal Service, is a community-run organisation in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, founded in 1970 to provide legal services to Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders and based in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern. It now has branches across NSW and ACT, with its head office in Castlereagh Street, Sydney and a branch office in Regent Street, Redfern.
The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), founded in Adelaide, South Australia, as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) on 16 February 1958, was a civil rights organisation which campaigned for the welfare of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, and the first national body representing Aboriginal interests. It was influential in lobbying in favour of the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal Australians. It was renamed to National Aboriginal and Islander Liberation Movement (NAILM) in the early to mid 1970s, before disbanding in 1978.
The Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910 was an Act of the South Australian parliament, assented to on 7 December 1910. The Act established the Northern Territory Aboriginals Department, to be responsible for the control and welfare of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, and created the office of Chief Protector of Aborigines. On 1 January 1911, the Northern Territory was transferred from South Australia to federal government control. The 1910 Act was repealed by the federal government's Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 on 13 June 1918, which nevertheless carried forward many of the provisions of the 1910 Act. A 1939 amendment replaced the position of Chief Protector with Director of Native Affairs.
Aboriginal Australian identity, sometimes known as Aboriginality, is the perception of oneself as Aboriginal Australian, or the recognition by others of that identity. Aboriginal Australians are one of two Indigenous Australian groups of peoples, the other being Torres Strait Islanders. There has also been discussion about the use of "Indigenous" vs "Aboriginal", or more specific group names, such as Murri or Noongar (demonyms), Kaurna or Yolngu, based on language, or a clan name. Usually preference of the person(s) in question is used, if known.